


can someone send a runner (for the feeling that I lost today)

by Abrus



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AoS Smut Week 2019, Bus Kids - Freeform, F/M, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Post-Episode: s01e06 FZZT, Science Babies, Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 23:03:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20299384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abrus/pseuds/Abrus
Summary: Jemma jumps off a plane, an act which understandably causes her to rethink her life choices.or,FitzSimmons make a different decision.





	can someone send a runner (for the feeling that I lost today)

Jemma sits quietly, wrapped in one of Fitz's old cardigans. She’s still shivering after free-falling several thousand feet. She’d never known that wind could feel that icy cold, so sharp that it’s more of a stabbing sensation. Her cheeks will have windburn for weeks.

More painful, however, is the guilt.

She had promised Fitz that the field would be safe for them; that their only position would be in a mobile lab. Instead, the field had turned out to be nothing at all like they had imagined. No opportunity for phone calls to family, the chance of being separated on missions, being shot at, being exposed in improper lab conditions to lethal alien diseases and technology…

No, this is not what Jemma had planned.

Doubt had crept in many times, of course, from her very first class at the Academy. SHIELD is not necessarily known for paying well, but Jemma had hoped for at least cutting-edge, modern technology and endless opportunity for advancement. Instead, she’d found subpar offerings from higher-ups who had the Avengers to focus on, and a slathering of people with god and hero complexes that found themselves working for a government agency few truly believed in.

SHIELD, an _American_ agency. Jemma is a long, long way from Sheffield. A long, long way from her dreams of being the youngest and brightest scientist of her age meaning anything at all to anyone other than Phillip Coulson, kind as he is.

The churning in her gut only worsens when the bunk doors hiss open and there’s Fitz; worry crinkles his eyes, and his forehead is still splotching from his earlier sobs. He’s carrying her favorite tea, but there’s a slump in his shoulders that wasn’t there this morning.

The door slides shut behind him. He sits her steaming mug down on her tiny bedside table with a barely audible thump, and then folds himself down next to her.

Not once does he look at her. Jemma can barely breathe past the lump in her throat.

Still, she says it before he does. “I think we made a mistake.”

The air leaves him in a slow exhale, as though she is trying his patience. She probably has been for a while. The mobile lab position had seemed like the most perfect promotion when they’d met Phil; travel the world for free, receive nearly limitless funding and supplies, be at the forefront of the world’s most intriguing scientific questions.

As per usual, once she had decided she wanted something, there was no talking her out of it. And look where it’s gotten them; her nearly dead, him with a sore head because she had hit him. _Hit_ him. Her Fitz.

Really, she may just bend over and vomit.

“How are you feeling?” he asks quietly. Even in the half-darkness, his blue eyes are striking. Some people get all the best genetics.

“Guilty.”

“Jemma, come on.”

“I’m serious-“

“I seriously want to know-“

“We should never have agreed to this-“

“How you’re doing, this isn’t a rhetorical-“

“I’m so sorry I hit you. I don’t know what I was thinking. We didn’t even pass our field assignments. We’re not meant to be doing this, Fitz.”

He only stops talking when her eyes fill with tears and spill over.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where I went wrong. Oh, hells, yes I do! I most certainly do. I’m so sorry,” she wails, and though she doesn’t feel as though she deserves it, he pulls her close anyway, until her head is resting against his shoulder.

“Alright then. Out with it. Can’t solve an equation with a mistake in the middle. Let’s go back and see if we can sort it, yes?” he murmurs.

It’s a tone of voice she rarely hears from him; when it’s late at night and he’s puzzling something out under his breath, something he’s passionate about. Or when he’s reading a section from a journal out loud to her in the very early hours on their old couch. The sound soothes her instantly, and she feels her heart rate calm.

Life is not an equation, but she feels she can solve it anyway with him right next to her.

“I know where I went wrong,” Jemma whispers miserably. She’s thankful to have her nose pressed up against the soft fabric of his cardigan, so he can’t see her face. “I told you _no._”

His breath hitches in a way she hasn’t heard in over a year; she hates herself thoroughly for feeling a thrill at the way his shoulder tenses underneath her.

“Jemma.” He says it as though he really wants to be saying something else.

Carefully, she pulls back to look at him. Their noses almost touch they’re so close. Her SHIELD-issued mattress has never felt so inviting with him perched on the edge of it.

Without saying a word, Jemma’s shaking fingers carefully go to the fabric of her collar and seek out the buttons.

Fitz whimpers.

She doesn’t take her eyes off of him as she slowly undoes each and every button, then pushes the shirt from her shoulders. He stares back at her, not even daring to allow his eyes to drop to look at her exposed chest. Jemma gathers her hair and pushes it over one shoulder, preferring things neat and tidy to start, and then her hands move to her pants.

“Jemma, wait.”

“You don’t remember?”

“Of course I bloody well remember.”

“Then you’ve changed your mind.” She raises one eyebrow, a talent she’s very proud of regardless of it being genetically predisposed. Fitz got the blue eyes but she got the eyebrow raising and considering how often they argue she figures that’s fair on a cosmic level.

Pupils blown wide and face dark, Fitz shakes his head. No, he hasn’t changed his mind.

Victorious, Jemma wiggles out of her trousers and reclines back against her pillows.

She wraps her fingers around her own throat, light and teasing, feeling the vibrations as she speaks. “A year ago, when the posting went up for the mobile lab position, I was so excited. Remember? I printed it out and brought it to you with all the benefits and perks highlighted and color-coordinated.”

Fitz’s eyes stay on hers for just a moment more before he closes them and breaks. When they open, his eyes are firmly on her fingers. “I remember.”

Jemma moves her hand downwards, trailing across her collar bones and Fitz groans.

She continues. “You were so put-out with me. You loved our lab, and you loved hating our coworkers, and you loved that Thai place on the corner. You loved our apartment and our terrible Syfy movie marathons. I didn’t see it then. I was so stupid. I loved the plants in our little kitchen and my large body pillows. I didn’t love our job, though, Fitz, and I went about course-correcting in all the wrong ways.”

Jemma brushes her long hair to the side, away from folds of the comfortable bra she had put on after being fished from the ocean. She dips her fingers into the satin to rub against her rapidly hardening nipple. Fitz’s eyes follow, and for a moment she’s distraught to find them full of tears again, until she realizes that his hand is also rubbing over his hardening erection through his denim.

“We fought for days. I was so miserable. It was the only time I can remember us wanting different things. I wanted to feel better, and sleep better, and so I walked out on you in the middle of you yelling. I went to my room and stripped down and got into my bed. And then I started touching myself like this. Remember?”

“I remember,” Fitz groans. “I barged in like a wanker.”

Jemma laughs; the giggle is watery but it’s genuine. Her blood seems to sing in her veins; _right, right, this is right_. “Like a wanker indeed.”

She moves her hand from one breast to the other, and then further down her stomach. Fitz groans, reaches for her hand, stills, pulls back. Shakes his head, thick curls bouncing. Jemma bites her lip hard and raises her hips toward him in order to slip her hand under the waistband of her undies.

Fitz picks up where she left off. “I didn’t leave like I should have. I should have turned around and walked out but you just made the most incredible gasping noise, and your face turned all pink, and I never wanted anyone as much as I want you. _Wanted_ you. Oh, _Jems_-“

He moves quickly, standing and shucking off his shoes, trousers, shirt. He seems to take his cue from her and frees his erection through the cotton of his pants and Jemma’s mouth waters. He’s just as beautiful as she remembers; she was kidding herself quite cruelly, thinking she would never have this again, that she could ever refrain from it.

He’s talking again and she’s rubbing her clit in time with the cadence of his voice. If she heard of anyone else saying that she’d think they were airheaded twits, but as it is, she’s a scientist. She knows exactly how to listen for things others don’t. She knows very well how to count, thanks.

“Then you said _stay, Fitz_ and you started moaning- _yes, that’s it, love, slow circles just like that, gorgeous Jemma-_ and I couldn’t help but sink down in your chair and watch you. Couldn’t help but fist my own prick and try not to make an arse out of myself. You like that, Jemma? Like me talking about how extraordinary it was to watch you fall apart on your bed for me? You liked me talking then, too. What did I tell you, hm? I remember telling you that I didn’t want to go into the field because I didn’t want us getting separated or injured or killed. That if you’d let me, I’d take you far away from SHIELD and hovercrafts and danger. We could set up our own lab, our own company, hire other bright young scientists from disadvantaged backgrounds. Have a house and a garden and- _fuck yes, Jemma, gods, you make me hard- _and a favorite vacation spot…”

Jemma slides two fingers inside of herself, but it’s not enough. Fitz is rubbing himself vigorously in front of her, but she wants him inside of her. They’ve done this twice, counting currently, and they’ve never even kissed. The longing inside of her threatens to drown out her impending orgasm.

“Fitz, I _can’t_-“ she whines.

“That’s what you said then, too! That we couldn’t, that we’d worked too hard to quit SHIELD right when we were eligible for such a promotion. I told you I loved you, Jemma, and that I’d take care of you. And I will. I will take care of you.”

Fitz leans forward, letting go of his own erection, and spreads himself above her. Jemma pants beneath him, not giving herself time to catch her breath before she surges upward and meets his lips with her own. His mouth is soft and perfectly shaped to fit in between her own lips. He groans, and the sound sends the pain in her chest shattering into pieces in time with the throbbing in her pussy.

“Fitz, please,” she sobs around his tongue.

Fitz knocks her hands out of the way- a move that seriously annoys her in their lab- and proceeds to slide two fingers inside of her, already wet with his precum. She cries out, coming hard around his hand as he works her through it slowly.

With trembling hands, she reaches down and strokes him from base to tip, and feels the warmth of his own release against her stomach. He moans, burying his face in her thick hair, now entirely unkempt. Then he collapses next to her, practically shoving her off the mattress there’s so little room.

Tears leak out the corners of Jemma’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Fitz, so sorry. Can you forgive me? Do you still want me? What are we going to do?”

Fitz twists until he can look at her. His face is serious, but much less lined than when he came through her door with the now-cold tea. “Do you love me, too, Jemma?”

“Yes. Unequivocally.”

“Are you sure you want to quit SHIELD? As heinous as today was, you need to be sure.”

“I’m sure. I’m not a hero, Fitz.”

For the first time, he grins at her. It’s an old grin, one that he used to give her over gin and bad take-away pasta. “Me either. Alright, then. We’ll just consider SHIELD a lengthy experiment, yes? Now we know several things that we didn’t when we started at the Academy together. Would you like to list them?”

“Yes, I concur that lists are efficient.”

“Right, then. Firstly, we know now that we are excellent lab partners, friends, and dare I say, lovers.”

“Indeed.”

“Secondly, we know that government work is not for either of us. Especially dangerous government work.”

“Cheers.”

“Right then. Not a failed experiment, see? Just an ended one.”

“So what’s the next one?”

“We know a lot of other scientists, Jems, and we both had several offers before joining SHIELD. Hell, even while working for SHIELD. If we must, we’ll take one of them. But I bet you that between the two of us, we can come up with enough to impress any bank or board in just about any country. I say we try to open up shop. See what happens. If the world starts to end, and everyone else is too stupid to figure it out, they’ll know where to find us.”

Jemma is still crying, but now the tears are happy, relieved. She presses quick kisses to his cheek, his neck, behind his ear. “Together.”

“Yes. Together.”


End file.
